If people continue to grow and learn and develop talents, they will find their passion and success. (Associated Press file)

By Michael MazenkoColorado Voices

“Follow your passion? That may be the worst advice I ever got.”

This insight from Mike Rowe of the Discovery Channel’s “Dirty Jobs” runs counter to every bit of advice teenagers receive from parents, teachers, and counselors. Yet, it may be the best and certainly most honest guidance they hear.

Now that high school seniors have filed their college apps and patiently wait to see which school will make their dreams come true, and high school juniors plan for the ACT and choose classes for senior year, it may be time to reflect on the belief that our jobs should make us happy and that college majors and career decisions should be based on ambiguous and nuanced ideas like passion.Read more…

Emilie Nickoloff, center left, discusses a student’s video project at Ken Caryl Middle School (KCMS) on April 11 in Littleton. Nickoloff, the teacher librarian at KCMS, has received an award from the Colorado Department of Education for her efforts running the library and providing expanded programs to her students. Colorado must be more innovatinve in education, Cindy Anderson writes. (Anya Semenoff, YourHub)

By Cindy AndersonColorado Voices

Every year, Colorado high schools graduate many students who are not college-ready in at least one of the skills that we consider essential for success in higher education. Newspaper articles and editorials describe in detail how many students in how many schools have failed to reach the ultimate goal of public K-12 education, which is graduating from high school with college-level skills.

We assume our high school students will graduate with academic skills that allow them to be successful in college and then go on to establish careers, to be productive members of society, to be able to think critically so they can make sound decisions in the voting booth.

These reports also describe the costs to the taxpayers for this failure of the public schools. One article estimates the annual cost to bring these students to college level in math and English to be $46 million.
Those of us who work with these students in Colorado colleges and universities can explain the cost a different way: a student who is not at college-level when they reach our campuses are less likely to seek help, less likely to perform well enough to progress through college in a timely manner (the Colorado Department of Higher Education defines “timely” as 120 credit hours in four years), and less likely to reach their academic and career goals.Read more…

Some Colorado students have already gone back to school, including those in Aurora Public Schools. Others, including those in Jeffco and Denver, go back later this month. Editorial cartoonists Joe Heller and Rick McKee offer their predictions of what students will be telling teachers and classmates they did during their summer vacations.

Arvada West High School’s graduation ceremony at the Coors Events Center on the campus of the University of Colorado on May 22. (Seth McConnell,The Denver Post)

By Pam GreenColorado Voices

It’s graduation time again, for everyone between the ages of 3 and 30.

I suppose it’s that tendency we have as Americans to celebrate even the most obscure milestones — not just commencement or graduation, but for “moving up,” “continuation,” and “passage,” of all things. Help us celebrate with our darling Madison as she moves up from kindergarten to first grade! Best wishes to Trevor on his eighth-grade passage! (Though in my memory, leaving eighth grade was more “escape” than “passage.”)

This obsession with creating a rite of passage for every event in a child’s life seems to me a little creepy. Do we really need a catered party for a year-old’s birthday? Is completing a year of kindergarten honestly worth the same level of congratulations as completing your PhD?Read more…

Online education is becoming more popular as college tuition rises. (AAron Ontiveroz, The Denver Post)

By Becky Takeda-TinkerGuest Commentary

It is apparent that the questions surrounding whether Colorado Community College System colleges should be allowed to offer baccalaureate degrees is an issue that will not subside any time soon. As the debate continues, Coloradans should understand that there are the higher education options currently available that address the issues raised on both sides of the discussion.
Colorado State University-Global Campus (CSU-Global) is the newest public university in Colorado. Created by the CSU System Board of Governors to serve adults seeking to complete their bachelor’s and to earn their master’s degree, CSU-Global was created to address continuing learners in Colorado and beyond through its 100 percent online programs. Today, CSU-Global serves over 8,000 active students and it does so without the use of state funds (i.e., at no cost to the State of Colorado), operating instead on its own ability to generate revenue through tuition and other entrepreneurial ventures.

The university is statutorily independent and maintains its own accreditation. CSU-Global’s novel approach to public education when combined with its asynchronous online courses, student success — focused mission, and unique structure designed to provide individualized student support, provides an effective environment for community college graduates, particularly in Colorado, to continue their education:Read more…

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My daughter Lily is a fourth-grader at Lowry Elementary School, a Denver public school. I like the school a lot, her teachers, the fact that its students span a wide range or race and economic backgrounds. But they recently wasted her time — and that of all her classmates — for two weeks.

It’s not Lowry’s fault. The issue is a test called the Traditional Colorado Assessment Program. The state Department of Educaiton mandates it for all public-school kids. For two weeks, they spent Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday taking this test. Conservatively, it was 30 hours of oval-filling. During that time, there was no homework and precious little supplemental classwork. In the interest in improving their education, their education ground to a halt.

I’m no education expert, but consider: The SAT takes 3 hours and 45 minutes. The ACT takes 3 hours and 25 minutes. The GRE takes 3 hours and 45 minutes. The Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) takes about five hours. The Colorado bar exam, over two days, spans about nine hours. Yet the TCAP alchemists settled on 30. Read more…

A 2008 file photo of boy playing with toy horses during a class offered through the Denver Preschool Program at the Greta Horowitz Learning Center in Denver. (Craig F. Walker, The Denver Post)

There was good news today for Colorado kids who are approaching elementary school age.

The state was awarded $29.9 million in Race to the Top federal funding speed up plans to provide quality preschool education.

The money will help develop programs that serve children with the highest needs. It also will be used to create a statewide quality rating system to evaluate early learning programs, develop a pool of highly qualified preschool teachers and start an early childhood education office at the state Department of Human Services.

The efforts sound similar to those undertaken by the Denver Preschool Program, which was created by a 2006 taxpayer-approved sales tax.

Recently, an independent study of the Denver initiative showed the vast majority of kids who graduated from its program were ready for school both academically and socially.

“This research echoes what we know from decades of research – high-quality preschool prepares all children for kindergarten and beyond, especially those who are most likely to start behind and stay behind,” said Eileen Piper, CEO of the Denver Preschool Program, in a prepared statement about the report.

If the state can take the Denver Preschool Program’s result to scale, Colorado kids will be well-served.

A New York teacher was grotesquely irresponsible when she duped her fifth grade students into writing holiday cards to a prison inmate — one who had been charged with child pornography possession.

Melissa Dean had her students make handmade Christmas cards for unspecified lonely people. She actually sent them to a friend of hers, who had been convicted of violating an order of protection and illegal weapons possession, according to the New York Times.

The intended recipient was John Coccarelli, who had been “charged in 2008 with possessing child pornography, but that charge was never brought to trial because he pleaded guilty to a charge calling for a longer sentence,” prosecutors said, according to the Times.

Some children balked at putting their names on the cards, but the teacher added them anyway. Dean was issued a letter of warning by New York’s Conflicts of Interest board, a punishment that would have been more harsh if Dean had not quit her teaching job in June. The Education Department had sought to have her fired.

The only bright spot in this sordid tale is that alert prison officials intercepted the cards before they reached the inmate. Thank goodness.

Vincent Carroll is The Denver Post's editorial page editor. He has been writing commentary on politics and public policy in Colorado since 1982 and was originally with the Rocky Mountain News, where he was also editor of the editorial pages until that newspaper gave up the ghost in 2009.

Guidelines: The Post welcomes letters up to 150 words on topics of general interest. Letters must include full name, home address, day and evening phone numbers, and may be edited for length, grammar and accuracy.

To reach the Denver Post editorial page by phone: 303-954-1331

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